Sunday, August 15, 2010

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2009) — In 2005, the average American consumed 64kg of added sugar, a sizeable proportion of which came through drinking soft drinks. Now, in a 10-week study, Peter Havel and colleagues, at the University of California at Davis, Davis, have provided evidence that human consumption of fructose-sweetened but not glucose-sweetened beverages can adversely affect both sensitivity to the hormone insulin and how the body handles fats, creating medical conditions that increase susceptibility to heart attack and stroke."

In the study, overweight and obese individuals consumed glucose- or fructose-sweetened beverages that provided 25% of their energy requirements for 10 weeks. During this period, individuals in both groups put on about the same amount of weight, but only those consuming fructose-sweetened beverages exhibited an increase in intraabdominal fat.

Further, only these individuals became less sensitive to the hormone insulin (which controls glucose levels in the blood) and showed signs of dyslipidemia (increased levels of fat-soluble molecules known as lipids in the blood).

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2010) — Fructose, a sugar widely used in soft drinks and processed foods, often gets some of the blame for the widespread rise in obesity. Now a laboratory study has found that when fructose is present as children's fat cells mature, it makes more of these cells mature into fat cells in belly fat and less able to respond to insulin in both belly fat and fat located below the skin.

"They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth."

Americans take in large amounts of fructose, mainly in high fructose corn syrup, a mix of fructose and glucose that is used in soft drinks, bread and a range of other foods.

Politicians, regulators, health experts and the industry have debated whether high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients have been helping make Americans fatter and less healthy.

Okay, so here comes the "high fructose corn syrup is bad, let's tax/regulate it" brigade. The article continues with politicians and their anti-HFCS crusade.Sugar is HALF FRUCTOSEHigh fructose corn syrup is HALF FRUCTOSEFruits and vegetables are ALL FRUCTOSEBreads and starches are glucose, which is also not good.So no, fructose is not good, but the idea that therefore the government should tax it is stupid. Why? Well, the only reason we use HFCS is because the government taxes sugar, which is mostly made outside the US, to ENCOURAGE HFCS, which mostly comes from US corn. They also subsidize corn, big time. They also have tricked us into thinking a high carb diet is good for use, so they can sell more US corn, wheat, and soy, all of which are bad for us. And they have demonized animal products and ignored the science which continually proves them wrong. Finally, they say this tax on HFCS will go to help treat illnesses caused by HFCS. NO IT WILL NOT. When the government sued the tobacco companies, how much of that went to sick people? NONE. The government spent every penny of it. Too bad they didn't keep some, for economic crises like the one we're in now.

At the very least, let this article be a lesson on how poorly the gov. does science. In Germany low carb diets are used to treat cancer, but in the US we're told this is ridiculous. Who's laughing now? Diabetics are told by the gov. to eat plenty of fructose, which doesn't raise blood sugar. Oh well, guess cancer is okay now? Is Michelle Obama going to stop encouraging us to eat tons of fruit/fructose every day? Probably not. Doesn't really matter, since the government's new "food safety modernization act" is going to destroy all the small farms and farmer's markets.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they're viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for "testing, training, and evaluation purposes." The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.

Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that critics have likened it to a virtual strip search. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images, and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail. The U.S. government likes the idea because body scanners can detect concealed weapons better than traditional magnetometers.

This privacy debate, which has been simmering since the days of the Bush administration, came to a boil two weeks ago when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that scanners would soon appear at virtually every major airport. The updated list includes airports in New York City, Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction pulling the plug on TSA's body scanning program. In a separate lawsuit, EPIC obtained a letter (PDF) from the Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department, and released it on Tuesday afternoon.

These "devices are designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded, which is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing," EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET. "We think it's significant."